Operations Research Transactions ›› 2025, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (4): 14-26.doi: 10.15960/j.cnki.issn.1007-6093.2025.04.002

• Research Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Single-machine scheduling with operator non-availability periods and deteriorating jobs

Dawei LI1,*(), Ganggang LI2   

  1. 1. School of Statistics and Mathematics, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai 201620, China
    2. School of Information Management, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330013, Jiangxi, China
  • Received:2022-11-01 Online:2025-12-15 Published:2025-12-11
  • Contact: Dawei LI E-mail:dwli@lixin.edu.cn

Abstract:

The scheduling problem with operator non-availability periods and deteriorating jobs on a single machine is studied in this paper. The objective is to minimize the total weighted completion time. Unlike scheduling with machine non-availability constraints, a job can be processed in the operator non-availability time interval but can neither start nor complete in this period. We first show that there exists no polynomial-time approximation algorithm with a constant worst-case bound when the problem has two operator non-availability periods unless P=NP. We then present a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm and a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) when there exists only one operator non-availability period.

Key words: scheduling, operator non-availability, deteriorating jobs, total weighted completion time, fully polynomial-time approximation scheme

CLC Number: